Resurfacing Countertops: An Introduction

A nice countertop can really make your kitchen stand out. Unfortunately, your counters tend to get a lot of use over their lifetime and can really start to show that wear as they age. Conventional wisdom often suggests that when your counters start to stand out because of their stains or damage then it’s likely time to start thinking about new countertops. That can be a really big expense, though… which is why you might be better off considering resurfacing your countertops first.

As the name suggests, resurfacing your countertops provides a new top surface for the countertop that can provide it with a new lease on life. Depending on your reasoning for redoing your countertops and the condition they’re in, there are a few different ways that you can go about resurfacing them. Let’s take a look at some of the options that are available to you to see if resurfacing is a better option for you than replacing your countertops completely.

Improving the Aesthetic

One reason that you might be considering new countertops is that you want to change the look or general aesthetic of your counters. This might be because the countertops don’t really match other decorative aspects of the kitchen, or because various stains, scratches, and blemishes have made them rather unappealing. Regardless of the reason, there are a few options available for this. The most popular of these options are countertop paints and epoxy resurfacing. Bear in mind that this isn’t just a matter of slapping a layer of paint on the countertop and calling it a day; these paints and epoxies fill in small cracks and other damage, seal the countertop, and provide you with a hardened final surface that is resistant to damage and staining.

If that sounds like a little bit more of a project than you’re wanting to take on and you’d just prefer your countertops to have some more protection against future scratches and stains, there are options for that too. The most common treatment of this type comes in the form of countertop films. These functionally work similar to contact paper, but they bond better and provide a better layer of protection than you’d get from using regular contact papers. They also have the advantage of letting you cover only sections of the countertop if you’re trying to establish things like dedicated prep areas or a space by the sink for glassware to air dry.

Repairing Surface Damage

If the damage to your countertops is more severe than surface scratches, there are a few different ways that you can fix the issue while resurfacing. Some counter epoxies are designed to fill in larger areas of damage, providing you with a beautiful and uniform surface once all the epoxy has cured. Filler compounds can also be used; you sand the filler once it’s dried and then apply epoxy or countertop paints as part of the final finish.

Another option, especially if you have stone or granite countertops that have cracks in them, is to have a concrete skim coat applied as a resurfacing material. While this won’t provide you the same longevity as installing full concrete counters, it will patch the damage effectively and give you a rock-hard countertop surface to boot. This can be especially effective if you were looking for a way to shake up the look of your kitchen as well.

Always Tour a Home Before Making an Offer: Here’s Why

At first, the thought of buying a home without having taken a tour to see it in person might seem like an odd choice. When it comes down to it, though, there are actually a few different scenarios in which making an offer on a home that you haven’t toured might seem like a good idea. You might be buying a home in a new part of the country that you’re currently not in and hope to have the property secured before you move, or it might be a home that’s getting a lot of attention and you want to get an offer in quickly. You might even be considering skipping the tour due to lingering concerns about the pandemic, or for other equally valid reasons.

While there are definitely good reasons to skip out on a tour, doing so can be a bad idea, maybe not even for the reasons that you think. Let’s take a look at some of the main reasons that you should avoid skipping a home tour, as well as some options if you don’t want to (or can’t) tour the property in person yourself.

Why You Should Take the Tour

One of the most obvious reasons to take a home tour is so that you can ask questions about parts of the home that might not be covered in its online profile. Signs of leaks or water damage might not be highlighted in photos, and other indicators of past damage are easy to overlook if you don’t see them in person. By identifying them during a tour, you can find out if repairs have been made or if there are other surprises waiting for you after the purchase.

That’s not the only reason that you’ll want to go on a tour yourself, though. By touring a home, you can get a better feel for how the house will actually fit in with your lifestyle and your personal tastes. It can help you to identify all the little things in the home that you’ll love that the photos might have missed, as well as those parts of the house that you’re probably going to want to have some work done to fix up or remove. Touring a home before making an offer gives you a better idea of how much work you’ll need to put into the house to get it to be exactly the home that you want.

Virtual and Proxy Tours

There are a few options available when you can’t be there in person to take the tour. An increasingly popular option is the virtual tour, which can be either prerecorded or live depending on who’s listing the home. Live virtual tours are a much better option when they’re available, since with a live tour you have the Realtor (and sometimes even the sellers) there walking you through the property with a video feed and answering any questions that you might have in real time.

Another option that might be available to you is a proxy tour. In this case, someone you know (or at least, someone acting as your representative) goes through an in-person tour and asks questions that you’ve prepared ahead of time. They may also take pictures or video for you, highlighting potential problems or points of interest to make sure that you’re aware of them. While this isn’t as good of an option as a virtual tour that you take part in directly, a proxy tour is still better than no tour at all.

 

Does My Heat Pump or A/C Need Replacing?

Summer is just around the corner, and for a lot of homeowners, that means having to run the air conditioner or heat pump around the clock just to keep ahead of climbing temperatures. These tools are amazing for keeping things cool, but after a while, they too can get worn out and need replacing. Do you know how to tell if it’s time to retire your current unit?

Efficiency Is Everything

Many people believe that if their unit is still working, it’s still doing its job, but with HVAC systems this isn’t always true. Efficiency is really everything, and an air conditioner or heat pump that’s slipping in this department may be on its way out the door. Older units may still cool just as well as they always did, and regular maintenance can ensure they live longer lives, but as parts start to wear, efficiency may begin to lag behind.

You’ll notice it in little things, like the amount of electricity your unit is using to cool your home compared to, say, the same month five years ago. Sure, weather patterns need to be accounted for, but if the amount of fuel used by your air conditioner or heat pump continues to climb year after year, you’re losing efficiency and your unit is showing its age.

Your utility bill is a great place to go for this information, but you can also gauge how efficient your unit is by checking the data from your smart thermostat, too. The longer you’ve had the thermostat, the more data it will have collected about all sorts of things, including, on many models, the weather outside your home.

Some Units Simply Become Obsolete

Although efficiency is really important to your HVAC happiness, another pressing issue is at play when trying to determine if your unit is ready to be replaced: obsolescence. Older air conditioners and heat pumps may have parts that are difficult or impossible to locate from distributors, driving up prices or making repairs untenable.

On the other hand, your parts may be just fine, but your coolant may not be. For example, if you have a slow leak that’s repairable, you’d need to replace the coolant that had escaped, with more of the original coolant. Many older units still contain coolants that are no longer manufactured or legal to sell, and your options are very few when it comes to changing the coolant in one of these units.

As long as your coolant is going strong, there’s no issue, but as soon as there is, even a well-functioning older unit may become completely useless. It’s not that your unit is worn-out, as such, but when you can’t get the coolant you need, and the potential for retrofitting to something more modern is a costly one, it really only makes sense to upgrade.

Not Sure If It’s Time To Throw in the Towel?

If you’re still not certain if it’s time to upgrade your air conditioner or heat pump, it makes sense to have a professional check it out. They can answer any questions you may have about the unit’s longevity and efficiency, as well as its environmental impact, and help you decide if it’s time to retire the beast or keep it in service a while longer. Sometimes, all an air conditioner needs is a good checkup and cleaning to go back to running at its best, after all.

 

Do I Need Flood Insurance?

Insurance is a great thing to have when the unexpected occurs. Unfortunately, it’s very rare to find a policy that covers every possible thing that might happen to your home; some incidents such as natural disasters typically require separate policies that cover the specific damages that can occur when these sorts of things happen. A good example of this is flood insurance, which isn’t included in most homeowners’ policies, but is still a popular coverage option.

When looking at insurance options, you may find yourself asking whether or not you need flood insurance. It’s one of those policies where if you really do need it then it’s practically a must-have, but if you’re unlikely to ever actually use it then it is somewhat of an unnecessary expense. To help you answer the question of whether you actually need flood insurance, let’s look at the coverage it provides and the circumstances in which it’s all but essential.

What Is Flood Insurance?

As the name implies, flood insurance is an insurance policy that provides coverage in the event of a flood. That is a bit of an oversimplification of the coverage that the insurance provides, though, and it can lead some people to not get flood coverage when they actually live in an area that needs it. Flood insurance provides coverage in the event of a flood, yes, but more specifically it provides coverage to help you recover in the event of flood damage.

This may seem like it means pretty much the same thing, but the difference can be significant. While flooding obviously produces flood damage, there are multiple ways that flooding can occur that need to be covered. Prolonged periods of heavy rainfall can produce floods, but flooding can also occur with severe storms, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Flood insurance may also cover some damage caused by events that are related to flooding, even if the flood waters don’t directly cause it, such as flooding resulting in a sewer backing up and similar incidents.

Do You Need Flood Coverage?

In areas that are prone to flooding, you’ll likely be required to buy flood insurance as a condition of your mortgage before you can take out a loan to buy a home. This is especially true if you buy your home with an FHA loan or other government-backed mortgage and live in what’s known as a “flood hazard area.” These are parts of the country where there is a significant risk of high flood waters on a regular or semi-regular basis. Even if your mortgage doesn’t specifically require flood insurance, if you live in such an area, you really need to pick up a policy because it’s more than likely that you’ll eventually experience some amount of flooding.

Even if you don’t live in a flood hazard area, though, some parts of the country are more prone to flooding than others. If you’re likely to experience large spring or summer storms, live near a coast where hurricanes or tropical storms might hit, or even just buy a home in an area that’s known to occasionally get heavy rains that are slow to drain due to clay or other deposits in the soil, then you might still have a not-insignificant flood risk. Provided that the coverage is affordable, having flood insurance in any of these areas might make recovery a lot easier if you end up finding yourself on the wrong end of a major weather event that results in significant flooding around your home.

Growing Up: Getting Your Vertical Garden Ready for Spring

When you don’t have a lot of space or open ground around your home, planting a garden might seem impossible. After all, plants need room to grow and soil to grow in, don’t they? While this is true, there is more than one way to get a garden growing. If you have limited outdoor space or don’t have room for a large garden plot, one option is to set up a vertical garden instead.

While not every garden plant is feasible for a vertical garden, you might be surprised at all of the things that you can grow vertically. Of course, you’ll first have to get your vertical garden set up and ready for spring planting. You have a lot of options with how you do this, so let’s take a moment to cover the essentials of what your vertical garden should have.

Choosing a Garden Location

The first thing that you need to take into account is exactly where you’re going to locate your vertical garden. Your options may be limited depending on where you live, but if you choose a suboptimal location, then you’re going to have a hard time getting your garden to grow. At a minimum, you’re likely going to want a location that gets direct sunlight for at least part of the day, and a full 6 to 8 hours of sunlight will probably be required for most plants. If you have specific fruits or vegetables in mind already, do a bit of research into their sun requirements to help determine exactly what you’ll need. A southern-facing view may help you to get the sunlight that your plants need.

Access to water is also important. While you can always water your vertical garden by hand, it can save you a lot of effort if the garden is located in a spot that will get watered when it rains. Having access to the ground soil may be beneficial as well, though it isn’t a hard requirement; if you live in an apartment or otherwise plan on establishing your garden on a balcony or other location that doesn’t have open soil, you can always create your own growing environment with containers.

Establishing a Garden Framework

Once you have a location, your garden is going to need a growth framework so that it can actually start growing upward. Trellises, wire cages, tripods, and even fences can all make solid support structures so long as they are sturdy and able to be secured. These can be attached to the exterior of your home or other buildings, connected to balcony railings, or even secured into the ground. The method of securing your framework isn’t that important. What is important is that it’s secured well enough to be able to stand the weight of growing plants and eventual fruits or vegetables.

With the support structures in place, it’s time to prepare your soil. If planting directly into the ground, you’ll need to till the soil and add compost or other nutrients. If setting up containers, choose a soil or potting medium that will encourage root growth to help ensure that your plants are secure as they start to grow up. The weight of the soil and the eventual fruits or vegetables will help to keep the containers in place, so you don’t have to worry as much about securing them as you do your supports.

Growing Your Vertical Garden

Once you’ve got your vertical garden set up, you can plant a variety of beans, peas, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and even melons and pumpkins vertically. You’ll likely need to tie down the vines early on and provide support for the fruits and vegetables as they grow, but the work will be worth it.

 

Should I Skip a Home Inspection?

When buying a new home, there’s a lot more that goes into the process than just signing some forms and picking up the keys. One of the big steps that you’ll typically take is getting a home inspection to identify any potential issues with the property. While this is common, most of the time it’s not actually required; while lenders will generally insist on an appraisal of the home, this isn’t a full inspection. So does that mean you can skip getting an actual home inspection as a part of the home-buying process?

Technically, yes. Unless you live in an area where home inspections are legally required, you don’t have to get a home inspection before purchase. Should you skip a home inspection? Absolutely not. Having your home inspected serves a much greater purpose than just determining its value, and waiving the option to get an inspection done before purchase could set you up for a lot of trouble (and out-of-pocket expense) down the road.

What Is a Home Inspection?

Unlike an appraisal, which just examines a home to determine its value, a home inspection digs deeper and actually looks into the condition of the home and its components. While the exact coverage of the inspection can change depending on where you live, the type of home being inspected, and the scope of the inspection you’re having done, the goal of the inspection is to determine the condition of the house. This will ensure that the home is livable, and will also serve to highlight any repairs to the property that might be necessary.

At the end of the inspection, you’ll be presented with an inspection report. Your inspection report will likely include items such as the condition of the roof, the windows, its plumbing and wiring, and other key issues with the property. This report will help you to make decisions about the house and can help you to budget in necessary repairs or upgrades when finalizing the amount of your home loan as well.

Why You Need an Inspection

There are a few reasons why you’ll want to be sure to get a home inspection. The biggest is to make sure that the home is actually in the condition that you think it is before buying it, so you avoid getting into the home and then having to sink in a lot of money into repairs after the fact. The home inspection can also help you to prioritize repair and upgrade plans, highlighting the areas that you need to focus on first. By getting a home inspection, you should be able to avoid a lot of the surprises that can sometimes come with a new home.

It’s important to note that some sellers might push for you to waive the home inspection process or at least limit it in scope. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have something to hide; in many cases this occurs when the seller is also looking to buy another property and is waiting on the property that they’re selling to close. Home inspections may take a little time to schedule and complete, which can slow down closing. Still, the importance of a home inspection is great enough that you shouldn’t waive your inspection even if the seller wants you to do so.

What’s a Mesh Network?

Chances are, you use the internet for a number of different things during the course of your day. The internet plays a key role in everything from gaming and entertainment to social interaction and even work these days, so it’s important that you have a reliable internet connection. Depending on the layout and even the materials used in your house, though, it isn’t always easy to stay connected everywhere within the home.

If your Wi-Fi coverage isn’t quite what you wish it was, replacing your existing setup with a mesh network might be the answer. Mesh networks have become increasingly popular in recent years due to how easily they solve some connection and coverage problems. If you’re curious as to whether your home would benefit from a mesh network, here’s what you need to know.

How Mesh Networks Work

A traditional Wi-Fi network usually has a wireless router that serves as an access point, and perhaps a few additional access points connected to the network depending on its size. All of the data routing is handled by the router, and both signal strength and network speed vary depending on how far away you are from the router and/or the access points. Some materials can also block signals from the access points, explaining why it may be harder to connect to your network in some rooms than others (especially if you only have a single wireless router as your only access point).

Mesh networks remove the need for a central routing device and distribute access much more evenly throughout your home. Multiple network nodes are placed around your home, with each acting as an access point and playing a part in routing your connection through its most efficient path to the internet. One node connects directly to the Internet in much the same way that a wireless router would, but it also connects to every other node within its signal range. Each of those nodes also emits a signal, boosting your network so that it more easily covers your entire house. Your phone, computer, and other wireless devices all connect to the node that is closest to them, and the nodes automatically route the connection through the most efficient path to the internet at large.

Do You Need a Mesh Network?

There are definitely advantages to implementing a mesh network. If a single node goes down, the other nodes will automatically reroute their connections to ensure that coverage isn’t lost. Likewise, when multiple devices connect to a single node, the network can reassign some of those devices on the fly to prevent network congestion. If you have a lot of devices spread out across the entire house, or are trying to provide fast and reliable coverage throughout a large house or across multiple floors, this sort of smart routing and internet sharing will definitely make things easier.

With that said, mesh networks aren’t necessarily right for every home. If you have a small or single-floor home and are able to install your wireless router in a centrally located area, you can likely save money by installing a single fast wireless router instead of buying and installing multiple mesh nodes. This is especially true if you have a mostly open floor plan, as there will be little that would interfere with the wireless signal in most rooms.

Mesh Network Installation

While installing and setting up a mesh network is doable as a DIY project, it’s not a bad idea to talk to an electronics pro to make sure that you’re getting all of the equipment that you need to get yourself set up. You may also find yourself in need of an electrician to add additional outlets if you want to install nodes in areas where power connections are at a premium.